-•'i*^-''--, #ff?'{'i^ JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY BwS¥ IN \ Historical and Political Scif^^ CE HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor History is past Politics and PoUtics present History — Ifreeman THIRD SERIES VIII THE Influence of the Proprietors IN FOUNBINa THE State of New Jersey By AUSTIN SCOTT, Ph. D. Pro/eSBOr of JBiBtory, Butgere CoUege BALTIMOEE N. Mdbbat, Publication Agent, Johns Hopkins Univbbsity AUGITST, 188 5 prospeItus of "Third series.— isss. INSTITUTIONS AND ECONOMICS. A Thii;d Series jai University Studies, comprising about 600 pages, in twelve monthly .monographs devotecl to American Institutions and JSconomics, is hereby oflfered to subscmbers at the former rate, $3. As before^ a limited number of Studies will be/ sold separately, although at higher rates than to subscribers for the whole set./ The New Series will include papers on Local and Municipal Government, Estate and National Institutions, American Socialism and Eco nomics. . Arrangements have been made for the following papers in the Third and Fourthi Series, although the order of publicatihn is not yet ftilly determined. I. Mar^and's Influence upon Land Cessions to the United States. 'Wnth minor papers on George Washiggton's Interest in Western Lands, tKie Potomac Company, and a National University. .By Hebbe£t B. Adams, Ph. D. (Heidelberg). JanuaJ^, 1885. I¥iee75 cents. II-II]f.. Virginia Local Ins,titutions : — The Land System; Hundred; Parish ; County; Town. By Edward Ingle, A. B. (J. H. U.), Grad uate Student (Baltimore). February and March, 1885. JVice 75 cents. ly. Recent American Socialism. By Eichabd T. Elt, Ph. D. (Heidel berg), Associate in Political Economy, J. H. U. April, 1885. Price 75 cents. V-VI-VIL Maryland Local Institutions: — The Land System; Hun dred ; County ; Town. By Lewis W. WtLHELM, Ph. D. (Baltimore), Fellow by Courtesy, J. H. U. May, June, and July, 1885. Price $1.00. VIII. The Influence of the Proprietors in founding the State of New Jersey. By Austin Scott, Ph. D. (Leipzig) ; formerly Associate and Lecturer, J. H. U. ; Professor of History, Political Economy^ and Con stitutional Law, Rutgers College. August, 1886. Price 25 cents. IX-X. American Constitutions; The Relations of the Three Depart ments as Adjusted by a Century. By Hoeace Davis, A. B. (Harvard), San FrauclBco, California. September and October, 1885. Price 60 cents. The Land System of the New England Colonies. By Melvilie Egle- STON, A. M. (Williams College)? The Republic of New Haven. With minor papers on Town Colonies. By Chables H. LEVERkOEE, A. B. (Yale), Fallow of History, j. H. U. City Government of Baltimore. By John C. Rose, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Maryland (School of Law). With an Introduction by Hon. George William Brown. The State Department and Diplomatic System of the United States, By Eugene Schuyler. New York City Government :— (1) Origin and Growth, by J. F. Jamesos, Ph. D. (Baltimore), Associate in History, J. H. U. ; (2) Present Adminis tration, by Simon Sterne, Esq.; (3) New York compared with Berlin, by R. T. Ely, Ph. D. (Heidelberg), Associate in Political Economy, J. H. U. Rhode Island Town Governments. By William E. Foster, A. M. (Brown Univ.)— The Narragansett Planters. By Edward Channing, Ph. D. (Harvard). Introduction to the Study of the Constitutional and Political History of the States. By J. P. Jameson, Ph. D. (Baltimore) : Assodate in History, J. H.U. ¦ '' JUSTICE TO JERSEY. \fPrepared for the New Jersey Sons of the A'merican Revolution, De cember 2t,fh, 1893.J It is forty years since I have eaten dinners in New ark—when I lattended school on Market street. I re member how there my schoolmates and I used to spout : " New England's dead. New England's dead ! On every hill they lie. On every battle field made red By bloody victory." / And much more to the same effect. I got the impres sion that the Jerseymen and others had generally gone home before the battle-fields became red, to be quietly laid to rest in due time in their family vaults. Later reading, of better authorities than poems or annual ora tions, has revealed to me that, if any other dead lay thicker than our Jersey dead on many battle-fields, they must have been carted there. The " Histories of the United States," written by New Englanders, make Jersey to lie quite in the shadow of Bunker Hill. These books have 5nly one fault. Their titles are wrong. Make their labels to read .Histories of New England.^ and they are perfect, full of their own virtues, with proper incidental men tion of the shortcomings of others. From this I ex cept Bancroft, who aimed to be fair. Studies, undertaken for other purposes, have step by step brought to my mind a flood of light that makes me proud, tery proud, to be a son of Jersey. The very abundance of that light prevents my giving you more than its faint image. I have found that Jersey was settled by lovers of freedom fi'om, all lands : Hollanders, the pioneers of free religion, free government and fi'ee schools ; Bap tists and Quakers driven from Massachusetts by pex'se- eution ; New England Puritans seeking greater security after the restoration of Charles II ; Quakers direct from English prisons ; Scotch Convenanters fleeing the exe cutions of Lauerdale and Claverhouse ; Huguenots escaping from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; Protestants from Ulster, oppressed by the trade and navigation acts of England. It was a combination of the best blood of the world. Look at the names on the rolls of Jersey soldiers who fought in the Eevolution : sixteen pages of names beginning with Fa?z, thirteen pages beginning with !Mc., with thousands of other Dutch and Scotch, and French names " thick as leaves in Vallambrosa," mingled among those of English origin. It was not strange, then, that an unsurpassed spirit of personal liberty permeated the earliest acts of Jersey. " No, man or nwmb&t- of men hath any power over con- cience^^'' was decreed. And in West Jersey, still further : " None shall he uncafoble of office in respect of their faith w worship!!^ Nowhere else at that day was such religious freedom dreamed of ; Eh ode Island ex cluded Catholics, and Pennsylvania required a belief in the atonement for the holding of office. Nor was it strange that later, ten years before Lex ington and Concord, a Jersey newspaper raised the cry, Jaith. or Die., that '' became the watchword of the con tinent ; " or that gallows were erected at Elizabethtown for the takers of stamped paper. Not strange that, ten years before the Declaration of Independence, Jersey was one of the four colonies named by the Ministry to Par liament as leaders of rebellion. Not strange that she burned her tea cargo, and that no jury could be got to indict the burners. Not strange that she sent food and money to the sufferers from the Port Bill. " Do not give up / if you should ^oani a-wy further supply of bread let us ^/io?tf," wi'ote the people of Monmouth to the people of Boston, whose grandfathers had imprisoned and flogged and banished (tAezV grandfathers for religious opinions. Not strange that, when the Continental Con gress, under the influence of John Adams, yielded on the Navigation Acts, Jersey would have none of them, and so sent her own separate address to the king. Not strange that she was the only colony to imprison her royal governor, and the only colony, except Virginia, to form a new state government before the Declaration of Independence was signed. The campaign in Massachusetts was glorious, but it was scarcely war. The whole English force there was only 9,000, and the whole American loss, at the. siege of Boston, was only 20 men. The war began in earnest at New Yoik, where Howe brought 30,000 men. At Long Island, 20,000 British, the largest force of theirs that appeared in the field during the whole war, was resisted by only 5,000 Americans, of whom the Jersey troops did the hardest fighting. Our loss was 1,000. It was not Jersey regi ments that fled at the first attack, burning the bridge, and leaving their fighting countrymen behind them. Nor was it Jersey brigades that fled, without a shot, at Kip's Bay. Nor was it Jersey militia that went home from White Plains, in dismay, by "regiments, half- regiments and companies." It was Bancroft, and Wilkinson's Memoirs will tell you who those were. Then followed the escape of the American army, in the fog, across the East Eiver, their flight from New York, from Harlem Heights, White Plains, Chatterton Hill, again to " stronger ground in the rear," leaving Fort Washington to be captured with its 2,000 men; go ing away up to the Highlands to cross the Hudson, and then fleeing from Fort Lee, leaving cannon and" every thing behind ; over the Hackensack, over the Passaic, over the Earitan, over the Delaware, where again tliey knew they would be followed as soon as the river froze ; the " dark days," the " mud march." The army of 3,000 had come over the Hudson to " protect the rich Jerseys," it was announced. It had brought behind it an enemy of 30,000 carrying desolation, fire, outrage and death. The New England historians have repeated the com plaint that the Jerseys did not now protect the army. " Oh, ye gods and little fishes !" The Jerseymen were now the army. The enlistments had expired, and the men gone home from New Brunswick, those of a neigh boring colony a month before their time. They who marched from the Earitan were chiefly fresh Jersey militia, who gathered to support Washington. And how could Jersey defend lordable rivers when all the foi'ces of the combined colonies had not dared defend deep ones or fortified camps ? The Jersey Battalions were then defending northern New York against Indians and Tories, and were detained at Ticonderoga after their enlistment had expired. There were not as many adult male inhabitants, all told, in Jersey, as Howe had under him, and his men were trained soldiers. Such talk might have its use to encourage timid friends, and silence carping critics at Washington in Congress (there were many such, and they came mostly from New England), but it has no business in serious history. Jersey did proceed to defend herself in her own way. Not with words, then or since, but with deeds, before Trenton and Princeton. Ford's 1,000 militia drove back Leslie's 1,200 regulars and Waldeckers near Springfield. Schenck and some Hunterdon men put to fi.ight a cavalry raid at Flemington. Houghton and his neighbors captured Hessians at Pennington. Little did the same continually at Newark. Jersey militia brought down the Durham boats from the Lehigh for that Christmas crossing. Jers'ey artillery, Jersey ofiicers, Jersey guides, Jersey spies, Jersey militia — '' all there were left of them " from good service elsewhere* — took part in Trenton, Assunpink and Princeton. The night after Princeton, Stryker, with twenty Som- erset light-horse, routed 200 British and drove their wagon train of woblen clothing to Washington's ragged army. Before the news of Princeton could have arrived, Maxwell started, with mostly Jersey militia, to drive the British out of Elizabethtown, and he did it, too, right on the rear of Howe's army, taking 100 of them prisoners. None of this spirit was the result of Trenton or Princeton. And I do not believe that it was the successes at Trenton and Princeton that " turned the tide " and "changed the fate of a continent," as the historical phrasemakers state. These two affairs were consoling, and very timely for the credit of the Continental army. But our total captures of 1,400 men in these two, was a small offset to the previous losses of 7,000 of our army (not counting deserters) since August. Neither of the two was a battle. Trenton was a night capture of sleeping Christmas carousers. Princeton was a fortun ate accident in Washington's miraculous escape from that desperate Assunpink ; he continued his flight, nevertheless, from the enemy whom he had recrossed the Delaware to drive out of Jersey. Men made brave and hopeful by such things must have been very brave and determined before. The best result of Trenton and Princeton was that they changed Washington's subsequent basis of cam paign. He had been seeking safety in rivers ; on six rivers in successiou he had hoped to make a stand, but always in vain. Eivers never yet saved an army ; the enemy always crosses a little above or below. In the terrible necessity of escape, Washington turned to the left just beyond Princeton, and hurried up the Mill- stone, tearing up bridges behind him and by the side of him to Pluckamin and Morristown, whence he thought to push on and cross the Highlands of the Hudson, or if need be the AUeghanies of Virginia. But suddenly he found himself on the headwaters of the Earitan and Passaic, looking down on all the scenes of his past defeats and retreats, back in full sight of the enemy's camps and fleet, but protected from them now by a double mountain rampart, the Watch ung Hills, around whose base he had been marching for weeks, without suspecting their nature. Two parallel steep ridges, 500 feet in height and 40 miles in length, the outer one with a few narrow passes, and the inner one without a break,run close side by side, south and west and north, enclosing between them selves and the Highland range a perfectly protected region of rich rolling valley. By closing up a gap at each end of the inner, or " second mountain," there could be formed a lake covering 800 square miles, and 200 feet deep in its deeper parts ; such a lake has at one time existed there. This Ne^o Jersey Mountain For tress did much to make these United States. Impreg nable, in a rich country, and overlooking New York, Staten Island, New Brunswick, even to Princeton, it was the key of the whole situation. Its connection with the Highlands in the rear bound together our whole country, making every movement on our part concealed and safe, and every attempt on the part of the enemy open and dangerous. I never look up at these Wat- chung Mountains without seeing in them the arm of God. Here lay the army all the rest of that winter, 3,000 8 men, mostly Jerseymen, sick with the small pox, while their Jersey brethren outside the camp went on per forming deeds that astonished the world. Bancroft says that after all it was left to the militia to achieve the great successes of the war, and that they did achieve them. Do I need to remind you of those exploits of Jersey militia, under Colonel Spencer, near Spring field ; Colonel Neilson, near New Brunswick ; General Dickinson at Somerset Court House; General Maxwell at Bonhamton and Eahway; of lesser engagements between equal numbers almost daily ; of pickets captured, foraging parties cut off, the Earitan river closed, and the British actually shut up in New Brunswick and in Perth Amboy ? Down to all ages should these heroic deeds go in history and verse and song. Their story has never been fully told, but listen to some involuntary panegyrics by capable judges at the time. Galloway, ex-member of Congress, and Speaker of Pennsylvania Senate, whose opposition to the war forced him to take refuge with Howe's army in New Jersey, wrote of what he himself saw, as follows : " The British posts at Bonhamton, Brunswick and Amboy were continually harassed and in a manner besieged. The duty of the oBBcers and soldiers in garrisim by this measure became as laborious and severe as when Ihey were in the field, and many of them were cut off in those excursions, which were necessary to repulse the incessant attacks of the enemy; more, by far, in the of)lnion of many able ofiicers, than would have been lost by an attack upon Washington's whole force." Washington wrote to Congress that the militia of New Jersey " From this time forward generally acquired high reputation, and, throughout a long and tedious war, conducted themselves with spirit and discipline, scarce surpassed by the regular troops." Wilkinson, Adjutant-general, and familiar withall that occurred at the time, himself a native of Maryland, described in his Memoirs some of the exploits of the Jersey militia, and added : " This current of good fortnne on our part depressed the confidence of the enemy, raised the spirits of the country, and produced the most happy effects on the recruiting service. " Henceforth the militia of the Jerseys stood preeminent among the defenders of the public cause ; they hovered around the enemy and harassed him when ever he stepped b^ond his stationary guards ; the aged watched, explored, designed ; the youth— alert, courageous and ever ready for the onset — planted a hedge of pickets in General Washington's front, to abate his painful solici tudes, to conceal his nakedness and support the revolution during the period, in which a second army was totally disbanded, and a third levied under the eyes of the British commander." Irving, in his " Life of Washington," says : •"The situation of CornwaUis, who but a short time before traversed the Jerseys so triumphantly, became daily more irksome. Spies were in his camp to give notice of every movement, and foes without to take advantage of it; so that not a foraging party could sally forth without being waylaid. By degrees he drew in his troops, which were posted about the country, and collected them al New Brunswick and Amboy, so as to have a communica tion by water with New York, whence he was now compelled to draw nearly all his supplies; ' presenting,' to «se the words of Hamilton, ' the extraordinary spectacle of a powerful army, straightened within narrow limits by the phantom of a military force, and never permitted io transgress those limits with impunity.' " Stedman, an officer who served under Howe, pub lished in 1794 a history in England. He says of these matters in New Jersey : " In all these transactions there was something inexplicable to the rational part of mankind. . . . Hen of common sense could not understand why the commander-in-chief, at the head of 30,000 troops, should suffer," etc. Frederick the Great said that the achievements of the Americans during the six weeks following Christmas were the most hrilliant in military history. Winterbotham's " History of the United States," published in England only thirteen years after the war, said of New Jersey : ID ¦' This state was the seat of war for several years during the contest between Great Britain and America. Her losses both of men and property, in pro portion to the population and wealth of the state, were greater than any other of the thirteen states. While General Washington was retreating through the Jerseys, almost forsaken by all others, her militia were at all times obedient to his orders, and for a considerable length of time composed the strength of his army. There is hardly a town in the state that lay in the progress of the British army that was not rendered signal by some enterprise or iexploit. . The ¦many military achievements performed by the Jersey soldiers give this state one of the first ranks among her sisters in a military view, and entitle her to a share of praise in the accomplishment of the late glorious revolution, that bears ¦no proportion to her size." Gordon's " History of New Jersey," published in 1834, wrote of this winter campaign : " Frequent small successes, the details of which filled the papers through out America, served to animate the people at large, who even supposed that the British would be driven to their ships for protection so soon as iheseason would permit the armies to lake the field. . . . This is not to be at tributed wholly to the victories of Trenton and Princeton. In the very mo ment of these actions, or before the results were known, individuals, ignorant of Washington's movements, concerted insurrections to avenge their peculiar in juries. . . . The war of skirmishes on the side of Jersey con tinued throughout the winter. In the course of it the British loss was sup posed to be more considerable than they sustained at Trenton and Princeton." In the June following this first winter, as you will recollect, Howe ventured to advance from New Bruns wick seven miles toward the Watchung Mountains, by moving his army at night along the further side of tha Earitan, and appearing at daylight Sunday morning in a camp fortified with bastions and artillery, six miles away from the foot of our hills. There, for five days, Howe deployed and manoeuvred his 15,000 troops, while Washington's newly-levied continentals, 6,000 only in number, paraded on the heights, strengthened their entrenchments and slept on their arms. Maxwell's Jersey brigade held the mountain passes below at Plainfield and Scotch Plains, and Moi'gan's riflemen (of 11 whom many were Jerseymen) held the bridge at Fin- derne. But it was the Jersey militia who seemed to be everywhere, in small squads from every natural cover picking off the enemy's foragers, pickets and stragglers. with wonderful daring and success. Howe suddenly turned about and made a rapid r'etreat to New Bruns wick, and three days later he evacuated that city and fell back to Perth Amboy, where he crossed the sound- Washington, in his report to Congress, wrote : " On the first notice of the enemy's movements, the militia assembled in the most spirited manner, firmly determined to give them every annoyance in their power, and to afford us every possible aid. . . . I am in clined to believe that General Howe's return must have been in consequence of the information he received that the people were flying to arms in every quarter lo oppose him." The diary of Joseph Clarke, of the continental army,. says of the militia on this occasion : " They turned out with such a spirit as will do them ho'nor to the latest ages. Never did the Jerseys appear more universally unanimous to oppose the- enemy; they turned out young and old, great and small, rich and poor. Scarcely any one that could carry a musket that was left at home. This soon struck a panic into the enemy, for they could scarcely stir from their camp, "^ut they were cut off." In August two battalions of the Jersey brigade, and one hundred militia, crossed at the old " Blazing Star " to Staten Island, and routed three loyalist regiments, capturing a colonel, three captains and eighty privates. Thereupon John Hancock, President of Congress^ wrote to Governor Livingston concerning the militia : " By their late conduct against our cruel enemies, they have distinguished themselves in a manner that does them the greatest honor." In November 150 of Morgan's riflemen, and a like number of Jersey militia, under Lafayette, attacked 30O 12 of CornwaUis' troops at Gloucester Point, killing 20 or -30 and wounding 50 of the enemy, with a loss to them selves of only one killed and six wounded. (Morgan himself was a Jerseyman.) Lafayette reported : " I found the riflecaen even above their reputation, aud the militia above all expectation 1 could have formed of them." Glad was Howe to escape out of Jersey that summer of 1777, with his 17,000 soldiers. Eather than under take again to cross the state to reach Philadelphia, he embarked his army on his fleet and spent two months on the way by Chesapeake Bay. Every winter thereafter, excepting that at Valley Forge, our Jersey Mountain Fortress shielded the whole or a large part of Washington's army for six months of each of the six years down to the end of the war, while the Jersey brigade and the Jersej^ militia guarded the open plains in front at Elizabethtown, Eahway and Camptown, and while the Jersey farmers fed and the Jersey women helped to clothe the army in its winter camp. And every summer, behind that triple wall of Jersey hills and hearts, the army moved and marched east and west, down to the great flnal march of the al lied American and French armies to Yorktown. Let us too, not forget to honor that Jersey Brigade of Continentals, who opened the Battle of Brandywine, .and covered the retreat of our left, severely punishing Meadow's and Monckton's grenadiers ; who at German- town escorted Washington into the thickest of the ^fighting ; who, with the Jersey militia, harassed Clin ton's march for a week, and then opened the battle of Monmouth, and there helped do what few troops have •done — stopped a treacherously ordered retreat, and 13 held their ground against superior numbers until the arrival of the main body. The advance force on that day is called by Bancroft " the fiov)er of the American armyH'' When fighting was slack at home, Washing ton sent them on the Seneca campaign to Central New York, Jerseymen forming a third of that expedition which Bancroft again describes as "0/ the best conti nental troops H'' Some of the Jersey Brigade were in that force in Virginia, led by Lafayette,which he called " the best troops that ever took the field." At York- town, Barber's Jersey battalion was with Lafayette's storming party in the charge, and entered the fort with the advance. Tlie enem-y never got into our Jersey hills, is a saying that lingers to this day in our old homes. Twice they tried it with all their combined ferocity and cunning, at Connecticut Farms and Springfield. Each attempt was repelled mainly by the Jersey soldiers and Jersey militia. The enemy's force at Springfield was over 5,000 strong, choice troops with cavalry, and 15 or 20 pieces of artillery. He was opposed by only one-fourth of his number, Washington with the m.ain army had been decoyed off toward West Point. Maxwell wrote to Governor Livingston that the action was the closest he had seen during the war. He ought to have been a good judge, for he had led that brigade everywhere. The enemy abandoned the attempt, burned the church and village, and retreated in haste, pursued and harassed by the militia, to their boats, crossing under cover of night to Staten Island. And yet once when I men tioned this battle to three young lawyers, graduates of 14 Yale and Harvard, they had " never heard of it," and said that " it must have been in Massachusetts." Oh, ye New England poets, orators and historians, what a work ye have done ! You have transformed the Puritan into a saint ; but you have failed to honor our Jersey ancestors who massacred no Indians, burnt no witches, persecuted no Quakers and Baptists, but from. the beginning separated church and state, and taught Virginia the lesson of perfect freedom in matters of conscience. You honor Washington now, but you have forgotten to mention who sustained him then. You have lingered over Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill, but you have found little or no room for Spring field, Connecticut Farms, Quinton's Bridge, the pri vateers of Little Egg Harbor and Earitan Bay, and the sleepless watchers on the six years' battle-ground. You have embalmed your own heroes in a nation's memory, but you have omitted Maxwell, Dayton, Shreve,Ogden, Barber, Ford, Spencer, Hyler, Marriner, Huddy and a host of others. You have recorded the resolutions of every New England town meeting, but you have ig nored the heroes and martyrs of the Jersey coasts, bays and rivers, who, year after year, fought the midnight raids, or wasted to death in the Jersey Prison-ship or the Sugar-house. On the New Jersey rolls of Soldiers of the Eevolu tion, I have found recorded seventy-four of the name and known family of three of my grandparents, of which number one-fourth appear as continentals, and one-fifth as officers. Many of you may find still more in your own case, for almost every able-bodied Jersey- man was a fighter in those days. They honored us ; let us see that we and our countrymen honor them 15 Let our school boys lay up in memory some such thoughts as these : New Jersey's dead. New Jersey's dead ! None braver, if as brave ; The army-front six years their bed. The battle-front their grave. Those quiet men, who spurned so deep The wrong, they knew no fear ; Who held tlieir lives for right so cheap. And sold their lives so dear; Whose sires defied a tryant's sway In Netherland redoubts. In Ironside or Scotch array, Or ranks of Huguenots ; They came from men who in every clime Had battled to be free. And here they won, in God's own time. Their final victory. Our Jersey dead, our Jersey dead ! For us they fought and fell. How well they fought, though often said, 'Tis well again to tell. Charles W. Opdyke. Plainfield, New Jersey. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 08725 9926